As computing devices have gotten more sophisticated, they have taken on new functionalities, including use as audio/visual communication devices. Due to the affordability and ubiquity of computing devices and due to their increasing use as communication devices, the number of devices used by the average person for communication has increased. It is now common for a single person to have one or more cellphones, desk phones, laptops, tablets, and desktop computing devices—all used for voice and/or video calls. Because of the ubiquity of these devices, users are more reachable than ever before.
Typically, each communication device is assigned a unique identifier that is used by a calling party to initiate communications with a called party's communication device. This unique identifier may be used to route communications packets to the called user's communication device or used to setup a circuit with the called user's communication device. Unique identifiers include Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) addresses, telephone numbers, and the like. For example, each computing device of the user may have a separate telephone number, different SIP address, or the like. To try all communicating devices of a called party, a calling party may have to both know a large list of numbers and sequentially try each number to reach a user.
Previous solutions to this problem used call forwarding set up by the user to forward calls from a computing device where the user is not present to a computing device where the user is present. This is time consuming and a user has to remember to setup the forwarding when they change locations. Other solutions include ringing all devices at once. This can be annoying for users when they are nearby multiple devices and in can be annoying for other persons nearby devices that are ringing when the user is not nearby.